Companies in the arc-rated (AR) and flame-resistant (FR) clothing and personal protective equipment (PPE) industry recently launched The Partnership for Electrical Safety, an effort to ensure hundreds of thousands of Americans working on energized electrical equipment are properly equipped and protected from the hazards of electrical arc flash.
"The Partnership for Electrical Safety" is committed to ensuring every American working on or near energized electrical equipment is provided with the appropriate arc-rated clothing and PPE. Proper AR clothing and PPE allows those whose jobs place them in a potentially hazardous situation to comfortably perform essential work and return home safely at the end of the work day. Hundreds of thousands of Americans working on or near energized electrical equipment are not currently provided proper protection from a deadly hazard, despite OSHA standards that have been in place for more than 20 years. The Partnership for Electrical Safety has been formed to directly address this longstanding issue and is dedicated to improving the health and safety of unprotected electrical workers across the United States.
Electric arc flash is an electrical explosion that results in a fireball that can reach temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun, explains the organization in a recent press release. This fireball can ignite flammable clothing and seriously burn exposed skin, causing catastrophic or fatal injury. As a result of being improperly outfitted, many American workers suffer serious burn injuries every year. Due to the nature of electrical work, the partnership maintains that arc-flash events will occur, but the fatal and catastrophic injuries are almost always caused by clothing ignition, not the arc-flash itself. The solution is simple - stop wearing fuel (uniforms that can burn) and start wearing AR clothing.
“The Partnership for Electrical Safety strongly believes that the PPE requirements of NFPA 70E: Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace provide the appropriate best practices to ensure worker safety and should be broadly adopted for substantially all live or potentially live electrical work in the United States,” said Scott Margolin, co-chairman of The Partnership for Electrical Safety. “The two primary goals of NFPA 70E and the Partnership for Electrical Safety are precisely aligned: 1) whenever possible, de-energize the equipment being worked on, and 2) when working energized, always wear arc-rated clothing and PPE that is appropriate to the hazard. As an association, we are looking forward to driving meaningful change to improve the safety of the American electrical worker.”
To learn more about the efforts of The Partnership for Electrical Safety or to share your arc-flash story, visit the organization’s website.
